Black Heart
by lionesseyes13
Summary: Little snippets woven together to form the life story of Regulus Black and his relationship with his brother.


Disclaimer: If I'm J.K. Rowling, then I've finally acquired an English accent, as I've been dreaming of doing for a depressingly long time.

Reviews: Give me something else to be grateful around Thanksgiving and review.

Black Heart

**Foreshadowing**: Unlike the first recollections of most people, Regulus Black's first memory did not entail either of his parents. Instead, it involved his older brother, Sirius. It consisted of his two-year-old self toddling after Sirius. Why exactly he wanted to catch up to Sirius he never remembered, but in the years to come, he suspected that it foreshadowed his whole relationship with his elder sibling: desperately racing after someone who would always be superior to him.

**Mimicry**: When Regulus was a little boy, he copied everything his older brother did. If Sirius rolled his eyes, then Regulus would try to do the same thing. If Sirius stuck out his tongue, Regulus would mimic him. Whenever Sirius pulled off one of the perilous stunts that were the hallmark of rambunctious youths the world over, Regulus would strive to perform the same trick and would almost always fail spectacularly in this endeavor. Regulus wasn't as smart or as brave as Sirius, and he knew it. That's why he could never follow Sirius as much as he dreamed of doing so. He would forever be second place to his brother, just as he had been the spare instead of the heir. That was why his parents ignored him and dotted on Sirius.

**Admiration**: Always a reserved boy no matter how much he tried to be otherwise, Regulus had greatly admired his older brother as Sirius grew and prepared to attend Hogwarts. Sirius was so audacious when he dared to sass their parents and question pureblood and wizard supremacy. He posed inquiries that Regulus scarcely had the nerve to consider in his head when he was alone in his bedroom at night. There was something about that reckless courage Sirius embodied that Regulus had to admire, and even envy, because Regulus already sensed that he would never possess the self-confidence and bravery it must have taken Sirius to step apart from his family at such a young age. As much as it ashamed him to admit it to himself, Regulus was the sort of individual who could only be content when he was accepted by a group. Without the approval of others, he would wither up and die like a shriveled bud that would never bloom come any spring.

**Indulgence**: When Sirius went to Hogwarts and did the unthinkable by getting himself Sorted into Gryffindor when Blacks were supposed to be Slytherins with the occasional eccentric, overly scholarly Ravenclaw thrown in for good measure, it finally dawned on Regulus' parents that their heir wasn't everything they had desired. As such, Regulus' parents finally started taking an interest in him, and, starved for affection, Regulus had lapped up all the attention they offered him. He listened politely to all his mother's stories about their ancestors and tried to live up to the traditional behavior that was expected of a son of the noble and most ancient House of Black. Seeing his behavior, his parents declared that he was better than Sirius. Pleased to finally be better than his brother at something, Regulus stopped trying to break the mold as Sirius had done and instead devoted himself to conforming to the standards expected of a Black son as much as possible.

**Conformity**: Doing what was expected of him ensured that he was placed into Slytherin a few seconds after the Sorting Hat brushed against his dark hair. Fulfilling the role established for him over the course of centuries, he became close friends with other young purebloods. Then, he continued to meet the demands of his parents by earning excellent marks, becoming a pet of Professor Slughorn, and a Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Talent was required of members of his family, and he proved that he had at least as much as Sirius, whom he sneered at in the corridors, just as Sirius leered at him.

**Pride**: Regulus was proud whenever he contemplated the purity of his blood. His ego was stroked further whenever he received top marks or managed to win a Quidditch match against the insufferably arrogant James Potter. However, none of these sensations compared to the overpowering euphoria that throbbed through his veins when he joined the Death Eaters along with the rest of his circle of friends. Being branded with the skull mark had made his brain turn pearl white with agony, but it had been a sweet pain. It was the pain that came with an honor. It was the pain that came with being one of an elite charged with purging Wizarding society of all traces of dirty blood.

**Trust**: When Lord Voldemort had requested to borrow one of his Death Eaters' house elves, Regulus had been eager to demonstrate his loyalty to Voldemort and had volunteered Kreacher's services instantly. He had been flattered when Voldemort announced that he would use Kreacher, and Regulus had rushed off to tell Kreacher of the honor that had been granted them both. Regulus' trust in Voldemort and Kreacher's trust in Regulus burned him when Kreacher returned, looking battered, disoriented, and ill, from the job that Voldemort had assigned him. When Kreacher choked out an account of how Voldemort had taken him to a cave with a lake in it, rowed him across the water to an island, forced Kreacher to drink a bowl of potion so that Voldemort could hide a locket at the bottom, and then abandoned him on the island, Regulus knew that he had placed his trust in a person who wasn't worthy of his faith. That knowledge had seared him to his core, but it had been nothing next to the realization that Kreacher, whom he had always tried to be kind to, had also placed his trust in the wrong person—Regulus.

**Berserk**: It is thoughts like this that make him go berserk. Once he started going berserk, he couldn't stop. Soon, he was faced with the startling epiphany that he had wasted his whole life by conforming with what others expected of him, instead of being like Sirius and following what his heart wanted him to do. Suddenly, he understood that all the achievements that he had taken so much pride in amounted to nothing, because all they had been were trinkets to prevent him from noticing that all his life he had been enslaved to traditions, to his parents, to those he had stupidly referred to as his friends, to Voldemort, and to himself. After all, it had been him who had placed the first limits on himself.

**Courage**: It is insane thoughts like these that give him the courage necessary to go to cave and lake Kreacher described, a place that could have come out of any of Regulus' most terrifying nightmares, and swallow the potion Voldemort had placed over the locket. It is this strange combination of lucidity and craziness that gives him the nerves to tell Kreacher to force him to keep drinking the liquid no matter what and to destroy the locket once he has gotten it. From Kreacher's story, Regulus knew that the potion would cause him as much pain as any Cruciatus Curse could and would compel him to relive his worst memories. Oddly enough, he wasn't scared by the prospect. He was savagely satisfied by the notion that he was finally standing up for himself and functioning as an individual. At last, he had ceased being a follower, and even Sirius had never done something quite like this. One day, Voldemort, whose brutal treatment of Kreacher illustrated all too clearly that he didn't care about anyone but himself no matter how much he liked to pretend he was the savior of Wizardkind, would be defeated, and Regulus would have played a part in that defeat. Regulus would have ruined a portion of the soul of Lord Voldemort and that was indeed something that he could be proud of.


End file.
